When Grif met Simmons
by Balrog Pimp
Summary: Red Base Blood Gulch Outpost 1 had never been the most functional of places but Simmons could handle it. Until Grif arrived and started to shake things up. Rated M to be on the safe side for language and sexual references.
1. Day 2

A/N: Yeah getting a lot into RvB. No slash yet. I'm seeing if I can hold back but it's just so damn tempting and slashable! Grif/Simmons are adorable, there needs to be more RvB slash out there in general.

To kick things off, here's a little quote from Private Tucker which inspired me:

_"Nah, it's just the same two guys bickering like an old married couple. I've only be listening for like five minutes and I can already tell they're really in love. Why can't they see it?"_ –Tucker ep. 38. K.I.T. B.F.F

**WHEN GRIF MET SIMMONS**

"Grif! Grif! What the fuck? Where did that lazy ass go?" Dick Simmons called out loudly after his repeated radio calls went un-answered.

This new rookie, a Dexter Grif, had joined the Red army just a week ago and within moments of his arrival displayed insubordination, a lack of motivation and a complete ineptitude. His choice of armour, an orange bordering on yellow, in itself came across to Simmons as a complete non-commitment to the Red cause and Sarge hated him from the first. And whatever Sarge hated, Simmons hated too. You know, so that Sarge would in turn like him more. Grif's excuse was that he had been drafted into the war and didn't want to be there anyway.

"Well you're here now, son so you damn well better get used to it!" Sarge had yelled in his face.

"Pft, whatever...Sir? Sarge is it? Man, this is gonna be so hard to get used to. Can't I just call you by your last name like er... "whatsisname" here?" Grif drawled nodding his head in Simmons' general direction.

"No you cannot call me by my last name Private Grif; you will call me by my rank which is Sarge, which is short of Sergeant! And for your information my last name is Sarge!"

"Okay what? So your last name is Sarge? AND your rank is Sarge. So then doesn't that amount to me calling by your last name anyway if I just call you Sarge?" Grif asked perplexedly.

"What are you talking about Boy? Simmons! What is this moron yabbering on about?" Sarge turned to Simmons who was standing stiffly at his right hand, for the moment silently bemoaning that they were to be saddled with this dead weight.

"I don't know, Sarge. As you put so succinctly just before, the guy's an idiot." Simmons said leaping at the opportunity to snidely add his two cents.

"So what he's on a last name basis? Fuck this I'm getting a beer."

And that had been day one.

Stepping out of the shade Red Base into the blistering sun of Blood Gulch, Simmons could still see no sign of the orange soldier. That is, until he heard an especially loud snort of snoring emanating from the roof. Simmons rolled his eyes and climbed to the top of the base which was glaring bright this time of the day without the protection of his regulation head gear.

There, lying slap-bang on the middle of the roof, no shirt, let alone a helmet on, was private Grif...sunbathing and clearly napping on the job. This would be occurrence that Simmons would soon become used to but initially he was shocked by his blatant unprofessionalism. What if the Blues were to attack? Grif would be totally unprepared to protect himself or anyone else. Bare-chested baking in the sun as he was, beer cans left discarded around his person, a still slightly glowing cigarette burning an unnoticed mark into the skin at his collar bone. The guy wasn't even in particularly good shape! His chubby stomach reminded Simmons of the puppy fat of a prepubescent boy before a growth spurt and just added to his overall boyish appearance. The illusion was only broken by the small amount of sandy, sun-bleached hair growing sporadically on his chest and face against darkly tanned skin. Clearly the guy didn't give a flying fuck about the need to get in shape in the army and was making a point of this as he lay drunk and passively smoking with the smoke still balanced precariously between parted lips.

Simmons would have liked to have used this opportunity to get some leverage on Grif in future, if he couldn't get him booted out for this directly, but regretfully he let his temper get the best of him. How dare this cocky little shit lounge up here on his fat ass and ignore Simmons' radio summons!

He marched over and kicked Grif in the side and watched the other man roll over and whine in pain.

"Hey Fat-Fuck, wakey-wakey!" Simmons yelled down at him.

"Hey what the fuck was that about Asshole?"

"Don't you have a job to be doing here other than lying around? Why weren't you answering my calls?"

"Guess it must be radio interference from these teleporter thingies. Maybe it was getting lost with all the radio ga-ga from all those other dimensions. "

"Being that this is where we pick up all our transmissions I think that's highly unlikely," Simmons interrupted to point out what he believed to be the obvious.

"Oh really? Well here's a better theory for you. Maaaaybe it's cause I know that you're just going to get me to do stupid, boring, pointless shit like the last couple of times you radioed me so I just turned my radio off," Grif said spitefully turning hazel-blue eyes to glare at Simmons. "You didn't have to kick me for it though..." he continued in the same tone but almost pouting.

"Hey, wake up! You're in the army now whether you like it or not and from time to time you're going to actually have to do stuff. Or at the very least be ready in case we get attacked!" Simmons chastised, becoming steadily more and more irritated by Grif's petulant, immature behaviour.

"Oh yeah? From who? The Blues? Everyday I've been here they've just been trying to spy on us, never to actually attack us, just spy on us as we do... NOTHING! I figured if I'm going to do NOTHING all day I might as well fucking enjoy it!" Grif folded his arms behind his head and lay back down. Casting a glance to his side, he reached out for the butt of his cigarette...

... instead, his hand met with the heel of Simmons as he crushed both the cigarette and Grif's hand.

"Ahh! Ouch!" he squeaked in pain.

"You listen to me Grif. You may be committed to doing "nothing", but the "nothing" that you're going to do will be the "nothing" that Sarge orders you to do." He ground a little more at the ash of the cigarette and the fingers of Grif, earning a muffled curse through gritted teeth. "Oh and by the way; Red Army is smoke free. Read the booklet. Downstairs ten minutes ready for duty." With that Simmons turned on his heal and left Grif, satisfied that he'd made his point and had thoroughly put the Rookie in his place and that he'd put an end to the insubordination.

Grif narrowed his eyes as he stuck his fingers in his mouth as soon Simmons' back was turned. Getting to his feet he growled out in frustration as he booted a crumpled beer can off the roof.

"That's the way you want to play it Simmons," he said sticking a fresh ciggie in his mouth, lighting up and sucking in sharply. "Two can play at that game."


	2. Bored

A/N: Not sure where this is going still hence M rating just in case. Knowing me it will probably become slash though.

**Chapter 2: Bored.**

He had thought about running away. But that sounded like it would be too hard.

For one thing he didn't know where the closest Red Outpost was. He could be wandering around for days with no food or water. Or, conversely, be lugging a huge amount around and that didn't sound fun. And even if he found an Outpost, it wasn't likely that they'd just let him go home. In fact, they'd probably make him do more stupid shit. That or throw him head long into battle and that just sounded dangerous. _Aaaand_ they probably wouldn't let him drink. Not that Sarge or Simmons _did_ condone it but they were pretty dumb and didn't find or bother to find any of his contraband liquor. Not that that mattered; he drank it blatantly. So the choice was: (a) Go AWOL on the off-chance he find another Red Base before he died of either starvation or thirst, and if successful, either have to actually fight or do more stupid shit, or (b) stay here and do stupid shit. The evil you know versus the evil you don't know. Pft, whatever, he'd just stay here.

Grif's stomach burned warmly as he took another swig of Kentucky Bourbon. He held his fist to his mouth briefly as he belched and acrid, burning vapour travelled up out of his stomach and out of his nose. Good stuff. Should really save it, didn't know when he next was able to get some, he thought blurrily.

Blood Gulch swam before his eyes, he was fairly certain it was the heat waves. Lazily he hefted the sniper rifle he had thought to take with him. He had taken it mostly to look around through since he didn't yet know where the binoculars were, or if Sarge even bothered to stock them when he had perfectly good sights to look through on the sniper rifles. Blue base jumped around as he waved the sights around before getting a good view. There was a guy in cyan armour doing Tae Chi on the roof of Blue Base and another guy in light blue boredly looking though his sniper rifle, thankfully not pointed at him. Yet another guy in standard issue blue armour was playing the guitar slouched against their teleporter. Grif dropped his rifle, figuring the other Blue guy wasn't drunk like him and would probably hit his target well before Grif if he happened to set his sights on the orange solider focussing his gun at them.

Boring... and to be honest the Blues looked as bored as he.

Grif dimly wondered what they were like to hang out with if he had decided that hey, the Blues were awesome and had better taste in colours. He pondered that that was what his life had really come down to in the end. Which was a better colour. Mid-western boy, 23, still living at home, bored shitless and kicking around. His mom had asked him what he was going to do with his life. Grif thought this was ironic considering she was a circus freak but hey, to each his own. He was allowed to have that kind of opinion of her because well, she was HIS Momma, just as HE was the only one allowed to call his sister a massive, disease ridden slut and stupid to boot. So anyway he had signed up for the army because what else was he to do? Collecting from the benefit, claiming that he was looking for employment and then whoopdi-shit! By sheer misfortune, he was selected randomly to be drafted into the Red Army and now he was here: drunk and waving a big honking sniper rifle designed to kill Blues and aliens. His life was officially fucked.

"Grif! Grif! Simmons calling Grif! Do you copy?"

"Ah!" Grif yelped, being pulled suddenly from his thoughts as the radio call blaring in his ears temporarily caused him to freak that some guy had snuck up behind him as he spun from where he was seated and tumbled down the hill.

"Grif? What was that?" Simmons' voice again.

"Nothing, Cock-Bite. Just surprised me that's all," Grif retorted, trying to regain some equilibrium.

"Yeah, I'm surprised too. Surprised you answered. But you don't hear me squealing like a girl," Simmons snide snicker coming across all too clearly.

"Oh bite me. What do you want now, Kiss-ass?" Grif flipped him off, forgetting Simmons couldn't see him.

"Where have you got to? Sarge wants to call a meeting,"

"I'm on surveillance _hic_ just paying the Blues a little visit," Grif answered, cursing that he had got the hiccups. Once he started he found it very difficult to stop, and they usually gave him headaches. He thought that being surprised was supposed to stop them not bring them on.

"Oh yeah?" said Simmons, sounding mildy surprised.

"Yeah, there's some dude doing _hic_ Tae Chi, another dude playing the gui-_hic_ tar and the last guy is acting like he's working. You _hic _know, they're just like us! Except Sarge is playing around trying to build his own _hic_ mechanical Pinno-_hic_-chio while you're kissing his _hic _ass and I'm looking for a way out of this_ hic_ mad-house."

There was a drawn out pause on the other end of the line.

"...You're drunk again aren't you Grif?"

"Yes I am!" Grif replied cheerily. "Gosh Simmons, you're really_ hic_ smart! How did you guess? It was the_ hic-_cuping that gave it away wasn't it?" he gushed

"...Just get back to base." Simmons sighed.

"_Hic_! Sure thing, Dick!" Grif chimed, and got up onto wobbly legs; praying that the Blue guy didn't just notice him so close to their base and shoot him as he stumbled on home down the hill.

Unfortunately he made it home quicker than he expected. All too soon as Sarge was back in his face yelling at him to vamoose into the disproportionately large briefing room.

"Well men, I'm glad you could all make it here to this meeting today," Sarge began as he always did.

"...Oh my God..." Grif whined from within his helmet.

"What was that Grif? Something to report?" Sarge asked.

"Other than this meeting sucks ass, no, nothing to report," Grif shot back.

"I don't think that that comment was very pertinent to the discussion, Private. Please refrain from making any observations unless they are essential to us winning this war. Simmons, you can erase what Private Grif said. But er, keep what I said about us winning the war and all."

"Already done, Sir," Simmons said making notes on a datapad. Grif couldn't help noticing he also sounded more than slightly put out.

"Red Command called in today they said-" Sarge began,

" Oh! I know! I know!" said Grif, feigning excitement and raising his hand. "Let me guess, they said "Kill the Blues and try harder to win"?" he asked.

"What did I tell you about interrupting, Grif? I can see that you're going to continuously make this a difficult working relationship between us, if you keep up with this tom-foolery!"

"Tom-foolery... who says that?" Grif once again cut it.

"Grif! For once in your life; mouth shut, ears open!" Simmons snapped, "You were saying, Sir?"

"Thank you Simmons, or er, where was I?"

Simmons shot Grif the death glare, daring him to interject before replying, "You were saying what Red Command had to say."

"Oh yes, they said "Kill the Blues and try harder to win". Also that and we're going to be getting a new shipment of ice-cream in soon so hands off the Rum Raisin! I call dibs."

Grif rolled his eyes, "It's all yours Sarge, as long as I get the Fudge-Ripple Chocolate with Brownie and Peanut Butter."

" Christ! No wonder you're such a Tub-Bucket!" Simmons declared, head jerking back to convey his dismay.

"Don't worry Simmons, I won't touch your Strawberry Shortcake Lite flavour. Now is this meeting over?" Grif said, backing up slightly towards the door, fully intending to mark on his calendar the days until the next shipment was due.

"Not quite. Simmons tells me you were on Recon. What Intel did you pick up Private?"

"That one of the Blue dudes can play the Guitar. Oh, I know how we can win this war Sarge! We can challenge Blue team to a battle of the bands! Whoever looses has to leave Blood Gulch. Simmons you'd be pretty good at playing the Maracas wouldn't you? Being Latino and all."

"I am not Latino! I'm Dutch-Irish! When the hell did you get the idea that I'm Latino?!"

"Since I found out that really winds you up, zing!"

"Sarge, permission to murder Private Grif," Simmons said, turning to Sarge.

"If I hadn't already just spoke to Command and put in an order for ice-cream I would let you do that Simmons. We'll just have to wait until Command contacts us again for supplies next month. Alright you two, you are dismissed," Sarge said turning back to... just Simmons.

"What?! Did that little rascal just dismiss himself?" Sarge said outraged.

Grif scuttled his way back to his dorm before either Sarge or Simmons could call him back. Opening the door he pulled off his helmet and scrubbed his face with his hands feeling the numbing fuzziness of alcohol masking the sensation. He walked over to his calendar and duly put, "July 27th, Ice-Cream Drop" then flopped back onto his bed. Six months, he had been here for fucking half a year. Half a year wasted, doing nothing. Nothing fun anyway. There was only so many times he could jerk off to last year's Miss World. He was reduced to having to use his imagination for once and that sucked. The only thing he saw on a daily basis was Simmons, Sarge and the occasional Blue and it was really hard to imagine anything beyond them... which made for some really disturbing fantasies and he would have to resort back to Miss Thailand. Closing his eyes he drifted off into alcohol induced stupor and dreamed of ice-cream.

Okay, he was bored. Frickin bored. He was in front of the moniters staring blankly for what seemed like two hours when in reality it was two minutes. What to do? Watch another movie and mouth along to the dialogue again? Put on some music before getting disenchanted with the upbeat lyrics or worse, suicidal to his angst? He had been here for a year before Grif had shown up. It was better then. He was still excited by the war. Then Captain Phillips had been promoted to bigger and better things and things had gone steadily down from there. Then Doc had left, not that he'd been particulary great company, and then it was just he and Sarge for a while, but Sarge was more interested in playing with constructing robots. Then Grif turned up and well...

Grif was a pain. A royal pain in the butt. But at least he gave him something to bounce off of. He gave Simmons a reason to vent and in some wired twisted way, Simmons kind of liked that. Liked that Grif almost seemed to know automatically the instant he had arrived at Blood Gultch _just _what buttons to push. Simmons would have described himself as a very patient man before meeting Grif but all that calmness and tolerance seemed to fly out the window in the presence of the orange grunt. He supposed that if Grif were less lazy, less obnoxious and generally more hygienic than he and Grif may have got along swell. And...

Simmons just realised what he had just suggested to himself. He and Grif, friends? He laughed aloud at that thought. Never happen.

The last six months had been nothing but one headache after another with Grif. The base was never messier with packets of chips and Oreo packets littering the floor along with random pairs of socks and strangely even a pair of pants floating around at one stage. The smoke alarms had been set off and the fire-combat system had covered the base in water on more than one occasion when Grif had lit up inside and he had accidentally corrupted many of the basic programming for their base when he tried to use the computer to download porn. The computers were now only accessible via password and Simmons feared for the day when Grif would figure out that Sarge wasn't very creative with passwords.

Despite this Simmons found himself thinking of an excuse to call the Walking Nuisance to him, just to have someone to interact with, even if it only ended up with rude banter and a fist fight.

"Grif! Come in Grif!" before he even knew it he had called up Grif. Fuck, what should he say now?

"Urgg... what?" the groggy, dry-throated cracked voice of Grif replied.

"Um, I just got a blip on my radar. Suggests some possible Blue activity. Wanna go for a walk?"

"Walk? Sounds lame."

"Hey, we could talk some beers along too. Shoot a couple of Blues, drink a couple of beers. What do you say?"

"Now it sounds too much like you're asking me out on a date. Since when have you ever wanted to spend time with me? And since when do you break rules like drinking on duty?" Grif said, sounding wary.

Simmons had to admit, he would think it was pretty suspect if the boot was on the other foot and Grif was the one pushing this walk idea. Last time he gave into something that Grif really wanted him to do he ended up with a face full of rubber snakes out of a tin-can and had fled to the Communications room and curled into the foetal position under the desk.

"Listen Numb-Nuts, primarily this is a defensive patrol mission, so don't get too excited about "dates" or anything." Simmons countered testily, avoiding the issue of beer.

"And you can't handle it by yourself? There's something else here..."

"Man! You're paranoid! If you must know I'm freaking bored, I want to get out of the base, blow a little steam and I'd prefer to not go alone!"

"Hah! So you _are _human after all! I was beginning to wonder if it was just me who couldn't handle this place. Okay, I'll get the beers, meet you outside!" The orange-clad soldier's tone sounded completely different than it had before.

That was all it took? Simmons had to ask himself. He had expected some brutal teasing for that last line, he had left himself wide open for one in retrospect but instead it was met with genuine enthusiasm. Strange...

Shrugging his shoulders and getting out of his seat, Simmons walked to meet Grif outside.


	3. Who Are You?

**Chapter 3: Who are you?**

Simmons stepped out of the shade of the Red Base, barely noticing the subtle shift in colour as his helmet automatically adjusted polarization to deal with the intense glare of Blood Gulch. Not sitting far away was Grif, propped against a rock looking at the sky. He wasn't wearing a helmet.

"Put your helmet on. You're going to destroy your eyes out here," Simmons instructed by way of greeting.

"Who are you? My Mom?" Grif shot back incredulously.

He couldn't read Simmons' face from behind the highly reflective visor, but the tone of the silence and posturing of Simmons told Grif he was getting a level rebuking stare in return.

"Fine. I just wanted to feel the sun on my face for once," sighed Grif, reaching for his orange helmet and pulling it back on his head. His suddenly depressed hazel-blue eyes hidden behind the impersonal, yellow reflection.

Simmons felt a pang of sympathy for the other man, but brushed it aside quickly. That was another reason he insisted soliders wear their helmets at all times on duty. It stopped people from forming inter-personal relationships. Which was just the way Simmons liked it.

"What does Sarge want, Simmons?" Grif asked wearily.

"Nothing. Why do you think Sarge wants something?" Simmons asked confused.

"Because that's what you usually come to say when you come looking for me," Grif replied. "Forgive me for making assumptions based on a wealth of experience," he finished sarcastically.

"Well maybe I came out here to enjoy the view," Simmons said.

"I'm flattered."

"Not you Moron!"

Grif just snickered and fell silent. For a while. "So er, what did you do before the war?"

"What?"

"I said; what did you do before the war?"

"You've been here for six months and you decide to ask me this now?"

"Yeah. I didn't even know your first name until I read it on your canteen last week. Dick eh? I wondered why you never cared when I called you that," Grif said contemplatively.

Grif waited a moment, and Simmons got the distinct feeling that he was waiting for a reaction. Which Simmons refused to give him, so Grif continued.

"I suppose it's better to call you Dick though. I mean, it's better Dick Simmons than Richard."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Simmons asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"What? Richard Simmons? You know the totally gay, day-time T.V. gym instructor. You can't say you haven't heard of _him _before!" Grif exclaimed.

"I have better things to do with my time then to watch over-weight, ugly people in obnoxiously coloured clothes make fools of themselves," Simmons said pointedly.

"Ah! You _have _seen it then!" cried Grif victoriously.

"I was making reference to you, Idiot!"

"Oh touché!" Grif said in a tone that belied his amusement, "Well Richard Simmons, are you gonna inspire me to do some step-classes?"

"Yup. Right now," said Simmons, levelling his gun at Grif's feet.

"Hey, hang on there Compadre! Let's not get too excited!" the other said hastily, bringing his hands up defensively.

Simmons lowered his gun and sighed as he lowered himself to sit on the ground. "I was an Accountant."

"I'm sorry what?" Grif asked, completely bewildered by Simmons' behaviour.

"You wanted to know what I did before the war. I was an Accountant," Simmons repeated.

"Oh... how was that?"

"It sucked balls."

"Oh."

Pause.

"Do you want to know what I did?" Grif asked momentarily.

"Shoot."

"Nothing." Grif said.

Simmons waited. Waited for Grif to add something to that statement like he knew he would. But he didn't.

"You did nothing? You mean like, nothing nothing? Or just nothing interesting?"

"No I mean nothing nothing man! I sat around on my ass and drank and smoke and ate Oreos all day," Grif said, stabbing at the ground with a rock he'd found.

"Huh. So nothing different to what you're doing now," Simmons said lightly.

"Yeah, pretty much. My whole life has just been one big nothing." Evidently Simmons' attempt to tease Grif into retaliation had utterly failed. The orange rookie just sounded depressed.

"Why is that? Don't you have any ambition?"

"Sure I've got ambition, I just... why the hell am I even talking to _you_ about this? You were a fucking Accountant! That has to be the most boring occupation there is!" Grif snapped, but Simmons somehow picked up that it was less malicious and more an attempted to get the conversation back on familiar ground. I.e.: giving each other a lot of crap.

"As opposed to you who has still to understand the concept of a hard day's work!" Simmons obligingly shot back.

"Yeah, thank God for that! Hey, wanna go throw paper darts through the Blue Bases teleporter?"

"Sure. I haven't reminded the Blues they suck for a while," Simmons agreed standing up and reaching a hand out to Grif to help him up.


End file.
